


Cleaning Up The Mess

by Porphyrios



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, hobbit - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bilbo Remains In Erebor, Disgusting Dragons, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarven Politics, Erebor, I REGRET NOTHING, Iron Hills Have a Bad Brogue - Sorry Y'all, M/M, PWP, Thorin is a schmoop, like seriously, things happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22917220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porphyrios/pseuds/Porphyrios
Summary: When the dwarves took back the mountain, they hadn't realized quite how much filth would be involved.  And for Bilbo, sticking around because of his feelings for a certain dwarven king, it was hard to put up with the crude Iron Hills dwarves.  Then while exploring, things went pear-shaped and now he's got a mess of a different sort on his hands... or wrist.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 30
Kudos: 491





	Cleaning Up The Mess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MordorIsCalling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MordorIsCalling/gifts).



> This is a gift for @MordorIsCalling, who was kind enough to use one of my stories from the other series in a fic. Accordingly, this fic contains the referenced story of Veki and Vilda from Ch. 32 of Crown :)
> 
> 'Herteloke' is Middle English for heart-lock, which seemed appropriate to Tolkien's linguistic profession; I wanted to use Anglo-Saxon, but "heorteloc" (Old English) didn't sound as cool to me, so I went with the Middle English instead.

"I've worse news than tha'... t' dragon was shittin' in t' forges. Eighty years worth or so, fair up to yer brows in places. Smells a right midden."

Bilbo tried to surreptitiously pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Forgemaster Mukhi continued his account, but Bilbo tuned him out for his own sanity. It wasn't that the Iron Hills dwarves' brogue was unpleasant, exactly... far from it. He rather liked the unusual accent they had, though the meanings of words seemed to shift around and they had many terms the hobbit had never heard before. But did they all have to be so... well, if he was being polite he would say _earthy_ , but the proper word was _crude_? Sometimes the hobbit felt that they were crass just for the sake of it. The look on Balin's face mirrored that on his own, and Bilbo hoped desperately that he wouldn't be given a shovel and sent below.

Since Balin asked him to stay for the winter, Bilbo had made himself useful around Erebor as best he could. Thorin was slowly recovering, but his wounds had been terrible, and the glorious victory and triumph of the Children of Durin had faded a bit when they were confronted with exactly how much filth and disrepair could be created in eighty years by a combination of dragon and neglect. When Thorin was in the grips of madness and there were only thirteen of them (then twelve after Bilbo's terrible expulsion, but he preferred not to think about that), no attention was paid to anything other than the entryway and the gates. When Dain's army arrived, they turned that same entryway into a camp of war... which meant that any trash or other filth was thrown in the nearest empty room and forgotten, because who knew if they would survive the battle?

But survive they did... most of them, anyway. And now the true scope of the problem was being revealed, one lecture about dragon... dung... after another. Dragons seemed to be odd creatures; not only did they excrete like most reptiles, messily, but they also seemed to cough up pellets of bones and undigested bits of hair and such like owls. They were as unbothered about living in their own filth as rats, and so the halls that used to be clean, well lit, and filled with dwarven traffic were now grimy, dark, and littered with piles of repulsive scat containing remains that ranged from the simply disgusting (matted hair, animal bones) to the truly disturbing (armor, partially digested clothing and dwarf or human bones). As best anyone could tell, Smaug must have spent time wandering the mountain, crawling through any halls he could fit himself into, presumably to gather any remaining treasure to carry back to the hoard. Only the treasury chamber with its vast piles of gold and wealth was free of filth, which was hardly helpful since there was very little there of actual use. Bilbo thought several times a day that he would trade every golden coin in Erebor for some comfortable wooden furniture and working plumbing. They were all cleaning as fast as they could, but at the current rate the hobbit thought if they got through it without sickness sweeping through the mountain from the piled up excrement and other leavings, it would be a miracle greater than Bard's lucky shot.

Even worse was the condition of the halls themselves. The more the engineers and miners explored, the worse the news. Whole sections of the mines were either flooded or collapsed outright. The forges were not only extinguished ("an' full t' burstin' o' shite, y' unnerstan'", according to Mukhi), three of four main smelters in the forge were cracked from the liquid metal solidifying in the channels long ago, and the last one was mostly shattered, presumably from some draconic temper tantrum in the intervening years. Until the forges could be repaired, hot water was out of the picture, a daily trial for a hobbit who valued both cleanliness and comfort. Thankfully the stream that flowed out from the main gates was still clear and unfouled, or else Erebor would be unlivable; no hot water was one thing, but no water at all... Bilbo shuddered to think. As for the halls themselves, two of the four residential areas were safe, including the noble quarters and royal suites, but a third was full of cracks and looked dangerous and the last was in such a parlous state that it was summed up by Urvi, the chief engineer as "if go ye must, go wi' a helmet, a wee prayer an' a bequest fer yer kin". Bilbo wasn't entirely sure of the specifics of that sentiment, but he was sure of the meaning, which was to stay out. The lamps were slowly being relit when they didn't require repair, a team of dwarves bringing them outside and recharging them somehow with the weak winter sunlight though they grumbled and cursed about the feeble light. The lamps were hardly bright, but thin trails of light now meandered through the mountain and marked the areas that were being actively reclaimed, giving the lost or confused a trail to follow back to the gates and the company of others.

There were indeed many challenges that faced the dwarves (and single hobbit) of Erebor, but the one that troubled Bilbo the most was Thorin. The king was not only the most difficult, stubborn, irritating beast of a dwarf Bilbo had ever met (though before leaving his smial with the party, he hadn't met many); he was also the subject of Bilbo's daydreams, often his night dreams (including some profoundly inappropriate ones), and a growing source of desire that left the hobbit feeling very unlike a proper Baggins. There had always been a certain spark with the handsome dwarf. When he first showed up at Bilbo's smial with the rest of the party the hobbit had been left feeling like a flustered tween instead of the staid and respectable Shire bachelor he emphatically was. Thorin wasn't classically handsome, certainly by hobbit standards, but his charisma was overwhelming. And that voice!... any hope that Bilbo wouldn't go along on their little adventure burned like the trees in the song when Thorin began singing in his smial. At first, the hobbit had just wanted to prove to him that he could keep up, be a good member of the party, pull his weight and earn something other than Thorin's sneers. After the embrace on the Carrock (a memory which still made Bilbo flustered) and time spent growing steadily closer, first at Beorn's and then in Laketown, Bilbo thought that Thorin had begun to think of him as more than a friend. Then the gold sickness, and the horrible episode on the walls, the battle... and now, nothing. Thorin was scrupulously polite, almost overwhelmingly so, but there was nothing in his manner of the warmth that he had exhibited in the latter half of their journey. The hours the hobbit had spent crying and hovering at his sickbed were never mentioned; the hesitant words of almost-love when Thorin lay supposedly dying were glossed over as though they had never happened. Bilbo would have given up if Thorin didn't stare at him when he thought the hobbit wasn't looking. Whenever they were in the same room, he could look up and catch warm blue eyes on him, though they would immediately look away. More than once Bilbo had seen a look of such longing he felt his own heart might break from it... but nothing was ever said. Because of this (and his own scarce-acknowledged feelings), Bilbo lingered, though he felt a right fool for so doing.

"Master Baggins, wha' think ye?" Bilbo startled, realizing that apparently he had vanished into his own thoughts at the wrong time. He pasted an insincere smile on and ignored Balin's dubious look.

"I beg your pardon, could you repeat the question?" Mukhi gave him a sardonic grin, but nodded in an exaggerated fashion and broadened his accent to a positively clownish degree. Balin's eyes closed in apparent pain as the shorter dwarf spoke, flattening his vowels and trilling his r's until he sounded like some sort of demented crow.

"Och aye, I ken me clack t' be a bi' odd fer ye," he began, and Bilbo could have banged his head against the table. After a bit more hemming and hawing, along with enough unnecessary and impenetrable commentary to fill a book, Bilbo finally understood that he was being asked to help lead a team to scout the old noble quarters preparatory to their proper cleaning in order to provide housing for more dwarves coming from the Iron Hills. He thought that the purpose of the new group was to help with the smelters and forges that started this whole discussion, but Mukhi's dialect had become so impenetrable that he just nodded and smiled. Balin had his forehead resting on the table by this point, and the hobbit figured that if Balin had given up, surely he could be forgiven for doing so as well.

"Yes, of course, happy to help!" he said brightly, standing up from the table. "No time to waste, I'll be off then!" Bilbo's pride had taken a beating from weeks of similar meetings; he was unashamed to flee. Balin practically sprinted out the door after him, ostensibly to tell him important information but the hobbit suspected the old adviser of similar reasons to his own.

"Bilbo," the white-haired dwarf puffed as he caught him on the second corner, "a moment if you please." The hobbit cast a wary eye behind Balin, fearing to see the short, broad form of the forgemaster trundling along after them, but the hall remained blissfully empty. An empty room opened off the hallway, and Bilbo drew Balin by the arm inside it, thankful that his first survey revealed nothing more than broken furniture and thick dust. They hadn't even begun to clear most of the rooms in the administrative area beyond the one meeting room they had both just left, and one never knew what might be lurking in dark spaces this deep in the mountain. Balin gave a small grin as he stepped inside the room. "I don't know why he does that," the old dwarf grumbled, "he's a brilliant dwarf, but he insists on sounding like a bumpkin. I think it's partly a negotiating tactic, but it's quite tiresome when you need information from him." Bilbo grinned in spite of himself; this was the first direct reference Balin had ever made to Mukhi's deliberately fluctuating accent.

"I must confess it does make him a bit hard to understand," Bilbo said with a twinkling smile, "but I don't know what goes on in the Iron Hills." Balin's eyeroll told Bilbo that the old dwarf had many unsavory suspicions as to the answer to that question, but no further comments were forthcoming. "Did you actually need something, or were you simply as desperate as I to make your escape?"

"Yes," Balin said, visibly focusing on the matter at hand. "If you're going to be searching the noble's quarters, you should be aware that you might find some... unusual items." Bilbo looked down and tried not to let his face reflect his sudden shock. Apparently he was unsuccessful, because Balin began spluttering. "Oh, no, no... nothing like you're thinking, nothing prurient, good heavens!" The old dwarf was sweating, and Bilbo wondered which of them were more worried by the prospect of finding eighty year old unmentionable items in a chest somewhere. "But many of the nobles were engineers and master crafters, and so they would have things in their rooms that could be a bit dangerous in the wrong hands." Ah, Bilbo thought. During his time in the mountain, Bilbo had discovered that dwarves were very prickly about the term 'magic'. They insisted vehemently (and often quite loudly) that 'magic' was something done by elves and wizards, and that they had nothing to do with such things. All they did was fine dwarven craftsmanship, no magic about it at all. To Bilbo, arranging strips of engraved metal around a crystal and causing it to trap light and glow seemed very magical, for example, but he had long since learned not to use the word. Balin's concerns suddenly became more clear.

"What sort of things should I watch out for? And what should I do if I find something?" Bilbo asked, and Balin's relief was evident.

"Oh the usual... If you come across any crystals that look a bit glowy or sparkly, especially if they are with other things, any sort of metal webbing or such, plates with sockets in them covered with runes..." the list went on and on, and Bilbo was once again struck at how tiny the dwarven definition of magic was if it didn't encompass metal plates or woven strands of various metals that, when certain crystals were placed on them, caused explosions. Or, for that matter, any of the other effects Balin was describing, which all sounded both painful and dangerous. Fire, light, freezing cold... apparently metal and crystals could be used to do all sorts of things that nobody else seemed to know how to do. No magic was involved, though; certainly not, he thought sourly.

"Balin... pardon me, but you think they may have been keeping these things in their rooms?" The old dwarf nodded, appearing surprised at the question.

"Well of course, lad! Where else would they keep them? When they need them, they need them, no time to go scurrying off halfway around the mountain to fetch things! But as I was saying, if you find anything like that, Mukhi is sending someone with you, just let him know and he'll take care of it quick as a wink," Balin said, beaming at the hobbit. "Just don't go fiddling with them and you'll be fine. Safe as houses," the old dwarf said Fair enough, the hobbit thought, as if I would meddle with dwarven crafts (magic!) like that. That sounds pretty straightforward.

= = = 

It was anything but straightforward. The 'team' he was supposed to be leading turned out to be only the promised helper and nobody else. It turned out that the noble quarters were dark, huge, and the more they explored the stranger the things that came to light. The dwarf Mukhi sent was a dour, elderly fellow named Ibun with a drooping mustache and knee-length beard, and he hardly spoke at all. Even for a dwarf, he was taciturn. Only when they found something and Bilbo called for him would he wander over, look down, and each time in exactly the same tone say "Huh... one o' _those_ ," and proceed to disassemble, disarm or dismantle the whatever-it-was before stuffing the components in a sack and moving back into the hall. The first time this happened, Bilbo took it in stride; by the fifth time, the hobbit was beginning to wonder what one of _those_ was; by the twentieth time he heard it he was ready to scream. Some of the items he found were under collapsed furniture, flung in the floor by who knows what sort of catastrophe, under beds, stuffed into cabinets or bureau drawers, and once even set out in the middle of the floor in a sort of magical booby-trap. Luckily he had seen the sparkle from the gem in the center of a spider's web of metal strands and called for Ibun before he even went into the room. Despite what Bilbo felt was quite clear danger, sure enough it was merely another 'one 'o' _those_ ', and several rooms before they reached the end of the long hallway he was about to lose what little sanity he had left. By the time he marked it clear and ready for the cleaning crew, he was beginning to feel exhausted. Even so, he thought it wouldn't hurt to at least take a look at the back halls.

The back halls had apparently been abandoned some time before the dragon came. Balin had told Bilbo in the first days after the war that so many died at Azanulbizar that Erebor was less than it had been for years before it fell to Smaug, and the losses had been heaviest among the upper classes. The first room Bilbo entered had apparently been converted to an impromptu storage area; old furniture was stacked everywhere, and even the light from the glowing crystalline lanterns Bilbo and Ibun carried couldn't penetrate very far into the gloom. Disassembled bedframes, chairs, dressers, and chaise lounges upholstered in rotting silks were piled head height to a tall dwarf through the whole room. The skittering of rats was heard in the back when the lights were brought in, but luckily Bilbo didn't see any of the vermin though he could smell the musty, ammoniac smell of their urine. In the shadows to the far left, though, he saw a beautifully carved chest that he would have loved to have had in Bag End. It looked undamaged, in far better condition than much of the furniture carelessly heaped in the room, and he went over to look at it. Ibun was poking around in desultory fashion among a pile of smaller items on the other side of the room when Bilbo flipped the lid of the chest open and stopped in shock.

The chest was full to the brim of jewelry. Chains and rings, bracelets and necklaces, a tangled profusion of items lay shining within, set and studded with beautiful gemstones everywhere. Bilbo was stunned; first, to see such riches casually hidden away in a forgotten storeroom, and second, that Smaug had somehow missed this hall and chest. That this much treasure could escape the greedy claws of the dragon was amazing. He reached into the chest almost in a trance, stirring the extravagant pile with both hands, admiring the flash and sparkle of the huge, flawless gems that made rainbows dance from the lantern-light. Despite not being dwarvish and having little use for gold as a thing in itself, even Bilbo could admire the sheer beauty of the work before him. He was utterly unprepared for the feeling of something clamping onto his arm. Screaming, he jerked his hand back and examined it for damage as Ibun ran over quickly. A silvery bracelet set with lines of tiny faceted stones had clamped onto his left wrist, a bracelet which his frantic efforts could not seem to dislodge or open the clasp. Greyish gems sparkled brightly on it for a moment before changing color slowly to bright blue sapphires, and Ibun's eyebrows went up. "Huh... one o'..." he said before Bilbo's steam-whistle screech cut the air.

"One of _what_?" he shouted. "What is this bloody thing on my arm, and how do I get it off? And by the Green Lady herself, if you say 'one o' _those_ ' without explaining yourself, it will go poorly for you." Ibun stepped back in apparent shock, but actually grinned, leaving Bilbo even more confused.

"Wondered how long ye could take it," he snickered, "bit o' dwarven humor ye ken." Bilbo glared at him, breathing heavily, and shook his arm in front of the old dwarf's face.

"What is it? Is it dangerous?" he panted, both furious and concerned. Ibun eyed it curiously, opened his mouth and, at the hobbit's very pointed glare, grinned again.

"Nay, not dangerous as such. It's old... 's called a _herteloke_. Made of mithril, that 'un, but they don't use 'em anymore. Don't remember how to make 'em, either, I reckon. Not sure how they get the stones t' change like that..." Bilbo was so far resisting the urge to reach out and throttle the old dwarf, but it was a close thing.

"What does it do?" Bilbo demanded crossly.

"Well," for the first time Ibun looked a bit uncomfortable, "that's the rub. In Khazad-Dum, the real hoity-toity nobles 'd wear 'em when they came of age. Only yer One could unlock it, so there wouldn' be any misunderstandin's. Very firm on actin' proper, yer old nobles." Bilbo wondered what on earth the old dwarf was talking about, and after a second or two asked exactly that. "Yer One! You know, yer heart-mate. Do yer kind not have 'em, then?" Bilbo shook his head, still confused. Ibun sighed and looked down. "Mayhaps I shouldn't tell ye these things, ye not bein' a dwarf an' all, but in yer situation... dwarves have a One, it's the other half o' yer soul, and when ye meet it, ye know. Most times, anyways." The old dwarf sighed and looked a bit misty-eyed. "The _herteloke_ was just... so other people could see, y'know. Hard t' tell what's in a dwarf's heart, but a thing like this, the whole room can know about it." Ibun rubbed his nose and gave the hobbit an apologetic look.

"That's... fascinating," Bilbo said in confusion, "but hobbits don't have Ones, we just fall in love the..." he stopped with an odd expression. "I was about to say the usual way but I suppose it isn't usual for dwarves, then. What does it mean that I don't have a One but have the bracelet on? And why did the gems change colors?" Ibun seemed to be getting embarrassed, long mustache twitching, but he finally sighed and looked away while he answered.

"The stones show somethin' about yer One. They change t' reflect 'em. Don't rightly know how or what they reflect, though," the old dwarf said sheepishly. "Nobody uses such things nae more, nor knows aught about 'em, ye ken. Yer kind not havin' a One, can't rightly say. Stones changed, though; it must ha' found somebody. Maybe ye have a One and don't know it." Bilbo felt himself turning red, though he was resolutely refusing to think about the fact that the stones had turned the exact color of the eyes of a certain dwarven king. He had just about convinced himself that (stares or not), anything there was a figment of his imagination and this discussion was Not Helping.

"Well, thank you, Ibun," he said finally, shaking his head. "I appreciate you telling me what you did." Bilbo was very proud of himself for leaving off the word _finally_. "Let's go back down, and I'll tell Balin about the chest. Perhaps nobody will notice my new bracelet and I can find a way to get it removed quietly."

= = =

Absolutely everyone noticed. No sooner had Bilbo come down the stairs than one of the workers walking by saw the _herteloke_ and did a comical double-take. By the time he had made it halfway across the main room they were using, a steady whispering was growing behind him and the hobbit was feeling more uncomfortable by the second. Finally he tugged the sleeve of his coat over it, trying to hide it, but the damage was already done. When he got into the small chamber Balin was using as an office, he closed the door and slumped against it in exhaustion. "Bilbo, lad," the old dwarf said in concern, "what on earth is the matter? Was it that bad?" Looking down, the hobbit grimaced as he realized the filthy nature of his work clothes, covered in dust, cobwebs and dragon-smut.

"It was..." he took a breath and let it out slowly. "Yes, actually. It was that bad. Worse than that bad, if I'm being honest." Bilbo went and flopped down disconsolately in the spare chair as Balin stared in surprise. "Ibun decided it would be funny to see how long I could stand him repeating the same thing to me over and over. The rooms were huge, ugly, disgustingly dirty, and in one case, booby-trapped." Balin exclaimed in shock at this, but poured a cup of tea and pushed it across his desk to the hobbit who seized it like a lifeline. "We finished the first halls, and I should have stopped. In the first room in the back halls, I found a box of treasure the dragon somehow missed, but when I reached into it I ended up with this blasted thing." He pushed back his sleeve, and the old adviser boggled like a child at the sight of the mithril band.

"Bilbo!" Balin said. "What on earth possessed you to put that on? Don't you know..." Bilbo cut him off.

"I reached in the chest and it put itself on me, I had no choice in the matter. I finally browbeat Ibun into telling me what it was and what it did, but what I need to know now is how to get it off. Surely there's a way to remove it without having to find the one person on the face of the planet that can unlock it." Balin's face was deeply sympathetic, but he shook his head sadly.

"Not that I've ever heard. Some of our folk died with them still on after two hundred or more years. Never found their One. If there were a different way to take them off once they were on..." he shrugged uncomfortably. "I remember love stories about the _herteloken_ when I was just a wee dwarrow. Nobody could take them off a dwarf but their One, and then when they did, the person would say 'I'm yours if you'll have me'... oh, so romantic," the old dwarf said, blowing his nose loudly. "In the story of Veki and Vilda, Veki broke off his courtship four times because he kept thinking he wasn't worthy of her, but Vilda loved him and knew he was. Finally she found a _herteloke_ and put it on, though it wasn't hers, and she was arrested for stealing. But anyway, the gems turned the color of his hair, and when he came to the court at her trial and touched it the bracelet sprang open, and it was only that which convinced him to go through with the marriage. Once she said 'I'm yours if you'll have me', he knew he had to say he'd have her, for she was his One, and then he had no choice but to marry her for he was committed, not that he'd wish otherwise." Balin was staring off into space, smiling fondly.

"Well, I don't think I know anyone with blue hair," Bilbo said, trying for a joke, but when Balin examined the bracelet again, his sharp glance at Bilbo's face made the hobbit wonder just how transparent he had been with his desire for Thorin. Nevertheless, the old adviser smiled in an avuncular manner and patted Bilbo on the shoulder.

"It's not always the hair," he commented cryptically, but he immediately turned the discussion to the treasure box and refused to be drawn back to the bracelet as a topic of conversation. When Bilbo had finished reporting everything he had seen, including the rats, Balin finished his notes and offered his thanks. Afterwards he leaned back slowly and looked at the hobbit, finally saying "You should go find Thorin. He misses seeing you, and I'm sure he's tired of paperwork by now."

Bilbo flushed, feeling like he was being teased but unsure exactly how. "I doubt very much he'd want to see me, Balin," he said, grimacing at the bedraggled state of his current clothing. "Even I don't want to see me right now. I think a bath, a change of clothes, food and bed are called for, though maybe not in that order." Balin smiled but shot him a look out of knowing eyes.

"Clean is better, but I'm not joking, Bilbo. Go find him. You might be surprised at how glad he is to see you. Since he's mostly recovered, you haven't been there as much, and when a person gets used to seeing someone regularly, when they aren't there so much, they're missed." The old adviser's gaze was serious as he nodded slowly. "Just my opinion, of course."

"Of course." Bilbo stood. "Well, perhaps I will, if only to tell him I've found him another giant box of treasure; that should make me popular with him if nothing else." Casting a lightning fast grin at Balin's scandalized expression, he moved to the door. "But first, a bath." No sooner had he gone outside the door than the whispers started. Even more annoying, dwarves kept finding reasons to bump into him or touch him. Odd at first, he was beginning to be seriously annoyed, wondering if perhaps he had put on his ring without intending to do so; they must see him walking there. It wasn't until he was halfway to his rooms that he finally realized what was going on and thought he would die of embarrassment. They were all trying to unlock his bracelet! Of all the degrading things that had happened since leaving his cozy smial, the hobbit thought, that about took the prize. Being chased around the mountain by a pack of dwarves like a dog in heat took the concept of social awkwardness to previously undreamt-of levels. By the time he got to his door he was shaking with humiliation and nerves. He took a long bath in barely tepid water, but at least he was able to scrub off the cobwebs and filth of the day. Putting on his clean set of travel clothes, he promised himself to wash and clean the others soon, though how long they would stay clean in the grime of the unexplored rooms was anyone's guess. He hated to go back outside his room, but his stomach was growling loudly and it was dinnertime. The thought of being bumped and jostled and pawed by dwarves, though... he hoped that stopped soon. Very soon. Hopefully before he stepped outside his door.

Needless to say, it did not. If anything it was worse on his way into the dining hall, because most of the population of the mountain was coming to eat at the same time and Bombur and the other chefs had prepared plenty of good, hearty food for the hard working dwarves. Word of the hobbit's 'discovery' had apparently spread far and wide. By the time Bilbo fought his way through the food line to fill his plate and reached the Companion's Table on the dais, he huffed a miserable sigh as he flopped in his usual seat and looked up... into furious blue eyes. Thorin looked incandescent with rage. Bilbo couldn't imagine what he had done to warrant such a look, but the last time he had seen that face, he had been dangling over the battlements, and it was causing his breath to come in short, pained pants at the memory as his chest tightened. "Good evening, Master Baggins. Perhaps you could enlighten me. Is there any particular reason you are so... popular tonight?" Thorin asked in an icy tone.

"I..." Bilbo fought for breath, trying to control his reaction. "I don't know." He finally said, giving up. Trying frantically to think of something, anything, to distract Thorin from looking like that, he blurted out "I found a box of jewels today!" Thorin stopped and, Bilbo was delighted to see, replaced his fury with confusion.

"That's... excellent?" The king sounded almost uncertain. "And where did you find them?" As Thorin's face relaxed back into its normal handsome lines, Bilbo felt his heart pounding for an entirely different reason. The scar from the battle was barely noticeable by now, and the white-streaked raven hair was dressed and braided with the care expected of a king. Thorin's broad shoulders were straining against the fabric of his Durin-blue tunic and Bilbo felt light-headed just looking at him. The hobbit scrambled to remember what they were even discussing.

"I went and was cleaning the noble quarters, well, pre-cleaning really, trying to find all the ma... the dwarven crafts," mustn't say that word, Bilbo thought frantically, "and a dwarf named Ibun gathered them up safely. In the back, there was a room full of furniture, but I suppose the dragon never went back that far. There was a whole box full of jewelry there. I told Balin, he said they would collect it." Bilbo felt like he was babbling, but he couldn't stop. Thorin was staring at him again, but the hobbit wasn't sure that he was even hearing what he was saying. The king's gaze was almost painfully open and seemed like it left a trail of fire across Bilbo's face. The hobbit worried that his own face looked the same, but he had no way of knowing. All he knew was that suddenly, overwhelmingly, he wanted one dwarf in particular to touch him and the rest of them could go hang. Before his nerves could veto the idea, Bilbo pulled back the sleeve of his coat and showed the bracelet to Thorin. "When I reached in the box, this happened."

The effect on Thorin was instantaneous. His face drained of blood, and he pushed back from the table. "Why did you put that on, Master Baggins? Of all the foolish, idiotic..." he stopped, eyes still glued to the _herteloke_ on Bilbo's arm. Suddenly he stood and glared around the room. "Now I understand. But hear me... Master Baggins is not to be bothered. Anyone who does will answer to me. It is entirely up to him who he allows, or doesn't, to touch him." His voice had risen to a stentorian roar, and all the dwarves looked up nervously, nodding and grimacing (with hunched shoulders and sheepish expressions from some of the earlier jostlers). He bowed to Bilbo and stormed off the dais, ignoring the hobbit's attempts to explain that he hadn't exactly put it on. Well, the hobbit thought, that didn't work. He ate the rest of his meal in silence, as the whispers in the room seemed to swirl around him in a choking cloud. He couldn't stop thinking of Thorin's horrified look, which Bilbo very much hoped didn't reflect disgust as well. Balin eyed him sadly from the other side of the table, but he chose not to notice. At least the trip back to his rooms was blessedly free of unwanted bodily contact. The night was neither restful nor pleasant.

= = =

The next few days were hellish. Thorin seemed to be hiding from Bilbo, either taking his meals in his rooms or leaving as soon as Bilbo came in the dining room regardless of whether his plate was finished or not. Bilbo was afraid he had offended Thorin somehow, though he wished that the king would just allow him five minutes to explain that he really, truly didn't put the bracelet on himself. Balin grumbled and glowered, but when the hobbit finally broke down and asked why Thorin was so upset, Balin wouldn't answer. Ori promised to research ways to unlock the bracelet and vanished into what was left of the Library, but Bilbo didn't hold out any great hope on that front. Even worse, while the unwanted touches had stopped after Thorin's outburst at dinner, strange dwarves began approaching Bilbo and paying him odd compliments, offering him little gifts and staring at him in a way that made him deeply uncomfortable. This subsided a bit after he dressed down several of them who approached him together, informing them that the way to anyone's heart was not by making them feel as though they were a rabbit locked in a kennel with hounds. Word of this seemed to spread with the same speed as news of his bracelet, and the frequency and awkwardness of such occasions dropped precipitously. Finally he began using the Companions as dwarven shields, hiding any time he wasn't working behind Balin, Dwalin, Gloin or one of the others. Dwalin poked at his arm and sighed, but Bilbo couldn't be but so upset; instead he hugged the giant warrior, making him blush almost as brightly as the hobbit. The same happened with Fili and Kili, though Kili actually pouted when the _herteloke_ didn't react to his touch. Bombur, Bifur, Oin, Gloin and Dori were already married and Nori had no interest, but Bofur seemed despondent when he didn't get it to unlock either (shocking Bilbo a bit, since he'd never had the first inkling that Bofur even thought about him in such a way). The hobbit wasn't particularly keen on the idea of any of the Companions (with one royal exception) as romantic partners, though many of them were close and true friends; still, by this point he would just welcome being shut of the damned thing. There was no luck, though, and so he had to keep dodging would-be beaus. He did spend quite a bit of time thinking about Balin's story, however, and the idea of Thorin somehow unlocking the bracelet made his heart pound.

Despite the occasional unwanted attention, Bilbo did manage to get the rest of the rooms in the back halls examined along with a chastened and surprisingly helpful Ibun (who proclaimed as soon as Bilbo saw him that he was already married, thank you very much - Bilbo had never been more overjoyed to hear such news). Most of them were empty of anything but dust, and he suspected that the furniture which had been in them was now being stored in the first room they had searched. Not all were empty, however. The hobbit was too tired to be more than grimly amused when he proved Balin wrong on one thing; the next to last abandoned bedroom had clearly been turned into some sort of disreputable dwarvish love nest at some point before the dragon came. The bed was placed in the center of the room, and there were various... fixtures... around the room that made it clear that the responsible dwarf had wide-ranging (and somewhat complicated) interests in the bedchamber. Ibun laughed so hard Bilbo was afraid he would have an attack of apoplexy, but Bilbo thought he himself was probably glowing with enough embarrassment that he shouldn't need a lantern to see. Ibun was cackling and holding up various items he had found in boxes around the room, and once again Bilbo was forced to wonder why Iron Hills dwarves were so crude. While it would never have occurred to him that someone might want one of... those... carved out of wood or stone, he saw no point in waving it around and whooping about it, either. He took a rather petty satisfaction in telling Balin about it and watching the old dwarf turn a blotchy crimson, figuring that one good round of embarrassment deserved another.

The morning of the fourth day, Bilbo woke from a terribly inappropriate and itchy dream in which sapphire blue eyes and broad shoulders featured quite prominently and realized he was late for breakfast. Scurrying down the hall, he almost ran into Balin who was carrying a tray. The old dwarf danced for a moment trying to keep his balance while holding on to the food he was carrying, but as Bilbo started to go around him Balin abruptly handed the tray to him. "Here, Bilbo," the old dwarf said with a smile that seemed oddly vicious, "take this to Thorin, if you please. I forgot something, but I'll be along shortly." With that, the white-haired adviser scampered off with surprising speed, leaving a stunned Bilbo holding a tray in the middle of the hall unsure exactly what had happened.

"What... no... Balin!" he called, but there was no answer. Sighing deeply, he trudged down the hall. This is a bad idea, he thought sadly. This is a very bad idea. This may be the worst idea in the history of all bad ideas. Cursing Balin, Thorin, his own foolishness for coming on the quest at all and coming down at this moment for breakfast specifically, he shuffled to a stop outside the king's door. He was about to knock but Dwalin, seeing the tray and giving Bilbo a wicked grin quite the equal of Balin's, opened the door for him. He stepped inside, already cringing. Thorin seemed deep in some paperwork at his desk, so Bilbo walked over to him and set down the tray.

"Thank you Ba..." the king said, looking up and suddenly jumping out of his seat. "Bil... Master Baggins! I... why are you here?" The dwarf's shock was evident, and the hobbit was hoping there wasn't disgust present but he wasn't sure. Bilbo sniffled but was determined not to cry. He absolutely refused to do so.

"Balin sent me with your breakfast tray," Bilbo said softly, looking down, "since you don't eat with us any more." Thorin's face closed like a barred gate.

"Did he," Thorin growled. Bilbo's eyes prickled. He hated the idea that Thorin didn't like him being around any more, but he was beginning to realize that there weren't any other explanations for his rude behavior. He had been foolish, he saw now.

"I'm so sorry, Thorin," he said in a choked voice, and blast it he was tearing up, he thought wildly. "I'll... I'll go," and he turned towards the door, crying properly now. 

"Wait," Thorin said and reached out to catch his arm. As he did so, his hand landed directly on the bracelet, which opened with a loud ' _snick_ ' and fell to the floor with a clatter, gems fading back to dull grey. Bilbo looked down, stunned into forgetting his tears. Thorin stared as well, seemingly shocked into immobility.

"I... I'm yours, if you will have me," Bilbo half-whispered. He'd thought quite a lot about Balin's story, and by the Green Lady, he hoped he remembered the phrase correctly. Thorin's expression was stunned, and Bilbo began to lose heart as the handsome dwarf just stood frozen for what seemed like an eternity. Just as the hobbit was about to turn and leave, Thorin seized Bilbo by the shoulders and pressed his lips against the hobbit's, kissing him so furiously that Bilbo quite lost his breath. When he released him, the hobbit gasped and shook his head for a second, wondering when the room became quite so bright. "I... so that's a yes?" he asked hopefully. Laughing aloud, Thorin picked him up and swung him around in a circle, then set him down, kissed him again until his toes curled, nipping at his lips and swiping a muscular tongue along them, then pulled back and stared wildly at him.

"Yes. I... Yes. Wait here. Go nowhere. I will return. Here. Um." With that, the king ran out the door at top speed to the sound of Dwalin chuckling. Bilbo looked around wondering what exactly was going on, and if not for the two blistering kisses, would have fled back to his room having decided that Thorin was quite extravagantly taking the piss. Still, despite his misgivings, he wasn't sure it was possible to fake that level of enthusiasm and he was willing to tolerate a certain degree of mockery for kisses like those. After what seemed hours but was probably ten or so minutes, Balin came through the door, looked at Bilbo curiously, then the bracelet on the floor, and nodded with a smug smile.

"Finally," the old dwarf said. "I assumed things either went very well or very poorly when Thorin passed me in the hall running like Durin's Bane had suddenly appeared in his chambers, but why did he leave?" At the hobbit's pained look and confused shrug, Balin went over and picked up the _herteloke_ , covering the mithril band with a napkin before doing so. "These things are a piece of dwarven culture that's well past its time to go," he said, wrapping the bracelet up securely. "At least it..." Thorin burst back into the room carrying a small box, panting slightly, and glared at Balin.

"Leave us," he said icily, and Bilbo was shocked when the old adviser, far from his usual strict observance of protocol, looked at the box, grinned unrepentantly at Thorin, turned and practically sauntered out of the room. The king slammed the door furiously behind the white-haired dwarf and the boom echoed down the corridor. Unfortunately the closed door did nothing to block the laughter from both Balin and Dwalin, leaving Thorin grumbling and glaring for a moment. He turned back to Bilbo and set the box on the table, staring deeply into the hobbit's hazel eyes. "I will have you, and gladly," he murmured in a low voice. Bilbo thought that was lovely, but drew himself up.

"Yes, thank you, Thorin, and I'm sure that's lovely, but could you kindly explain why you kissed me like... like _that_ and then ran off? What was so important?" Watching the king's face was like watching racing clouds, where each cloud was a new emotion. Confusion, followed by realization, followed by horror, followed by humiliation... Bilbo thought just his expressions alone could fill a theater in the Shire if he could do them on demand. In spite of himself, fondness filled his heart though he did wonder just what he was getting himself into with this.

"I... The... I wanted..." Thorin explained with what Bilbo suspected was his usual coherence when speaking of emotional matters. Finally he closed his mouth, took a deep breath, and started over. "I wanted to do this properly. I found the box in the treasure pile, and it was in my rooms, and I never dreamed when I saw the _herteloke_ that it would open for me, and I thought I had lost any chance of..." he shook himself sharply and his mouth clicked shut on the flood of words, but the distraught look he aimed at Bilbo shocked him down to his furry toes. "But please, accept this, as a token of my intentions," he said, holding out a mithril bead. Bilbo took it numbly, looking down at it and turning it around in his fingers. "This is the courting bead of my family, made in Khazad-Dum by Narvi Truehand to the requirements of Durin II Greatheart, my ancestor. Among my people, if you accept someone's offer of betrothal, you allow them to braid a bead into your hair. It shows the world that you are... together," Bilbo was fixated for a moment on the word 'betrothal', because wasn't that just a leap across the chasm from barely being acknowledged, but Thorin's low tone when he said 'together' made places the hobbit didn't even know he had tight and itchy.

"I like the sound of that," Bilbo said breathily, "together." Thorin's eyes flared and dilated and he growled low in his chest. Thorin shook his head sharply, then took the bead and looked deeply into the hobbit's eyes.

"Yes?" the king asked in a low rumble.

"Yes, absolutely yes," Bilbo answered, and Thorin made a pleased noise and reached up to section off three strands of the hobbit's curly blondish hair. Thick fingers were surprisingly deft at weaving the strands together, and when the bead was closed on the end Bilbo felt like he had just taken a new _herteloke_ on himself, but this one he wanted and treasured. Thorin pulled back and placed his hands on Bilbo's shoulders, eyeing his work with the hungriest expression the hobbit had ever seen on the king's face. Bilbo gave a hesitant smile. "Do I get to... give you a bead?" Thorin's smile was far more darkly sensual than anything the hobbit had ever imagined, even in those dreams where the king had done some rather unregal things indeed.

"At the wedding, my heart, and I cannot wait to feel your bead in my hair," Thorin said, leaning forward and trailing his lips along the edge of Bilbo's ear, teeth nibbling the sharp point. The hobbit felt like his body was going to fly into tiny pieces at the sensation. "But there is something else I cannot wait for..." Bilbo's face was buried in long, dark hair and the leather and spice smell of Thorin was everywhere as the king's lips slid down from his ear and down the column of his throat. Stocky, callused hands were everywhere, to the point that the hobbit felt like Thorin had grown additional limbs at some point, but he was too swept away in sensations to notice. Good heavens, he thought muzzily, I had no idea it was even possible to feel like this! None of the others he had played with as a tween could compare to this; it was like setting a candle against the sun itself. Thorin's hands slid under Bilbo's shirt and slid along his back and sides, and that combined with the lips working their way down to his collarbones made Bilbo's knees weak.

"Thorin... wait..." Bilbo said weakly, realizing that he was about to fall down from the overwhelming sensations coming from every direction at once. With a growl, Thorin picked the hobbit up (shocking Bilbo a bit) and carried him into the bedroom nearby, lips still devouring his neck and throat, and practically threw him onto the giant soft bed. Bilbo was offended at first, and wanted to berate the pushy dwarf, really he did, but somehow when Thorin stopped to pull off his tunic his mind got interrupted. It was difficult to remember exactly why he had been upset a moment ago when there were broad shoulders and muscular chests and thick, massive arms coming into view that... oh my. A trail of dark hair spread from the thatch between Thorin's pectoral muscles and trailed away downward to his trousers. Bilbo unbuttoned his shirt but the king looked at him with lust-blown eyes and stopped him.

"Wait," he said in a rough tone. "Mine." Very well, Bilbo thought, two can play that game, as Thorin went to unbutton his trousers.

Bilbo reached out and stopped his hands, then wrenched one of the buttons open himself. "Mine," he said teasingly, and the king produced a desperate high-pitched whining noise that caused Bilbo to feel a rush of pride. Who knew he could make someone else sound like _that_? As the next two buttons opened, two things became immediately apparent. First, and not inconsequentially, Thorin wasn't wearing smallclothes for some reason. Secondly, and glowingly important, Thorin was very excited indeed about the goings-on. When the large stiff member sprang out of the king's pants, Bilbo gaped at it for a moment, but then reached out and tentatively caressed it with one hand. "Mine," Bilbo repeated much more emphatically, wrapping a second hand around the thick shaft and beginning to stroke. Thorin impatiently pushed his pants further down, and Bilbo briefly let go of his new toy to allow them to be removed. He reached for Thorin again immediately, but the king bent over and gave him another toe-curling kiss while sliding his unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. Thorin's lips slid down his collarbones now unobstructed by fabric, sliding across the tight nubs of the hobbit's nipples and making him lurch against the bed and whimper. As the beard scratched along Bilbo's sensitive belly, he writhed at the edge of overstimulation, but he also sensed nimble fingers unfastening his pants and sliding them down. Despite all his attempts, though, they wouldn't slide off. Bilbo had to laugh at Thorin's fiercely frustrated face. "There are buttons at the bottom, silly dwarf," he said, pulling his pants up and unbuttoning them for the king, "so my feet fit through." Giving his best seductive look into the smoldering sapphire eyes of the king where they glowered down, he half-whispered "Please remember... for next time."

"Oh I will," was the surly response as the hobbit's smallclothes were wrenched off, and Thorin's mouth was suddenly all the way to the root of his cock, sucking like nothing Bilbo could have imagined. He cried out and fell backwards, overwhelmed by the warmth and wetness and the smell of Thorin from the bedclothes. The same gentle fingers that made such quick work of his pants were sliding along his thighs and bollocks, along and around and under and... ohhh. On each stroke, the king's tongue was doing amazing things, sliding and pressing and moving in a process that already was almost overwhelming; Bilbo knew he wasn't going to last long at this rate. That casual promise of 'next time' fired him as well. He knew that they were betrothed in dwarven culture, but the idea of someone being there reliably that wouldn't vanish one day seemed almost too good to be true. His reflections were cut brutally short by a body that decided it couldn't take much more.

"Thorin, I'm... oh..." he said, trying to express what the dwarf must know was coming, but Thorin just hummed deeply which caused a vibration to go through him and that was the final straw. Curly hair thrashed against the pillow as his body convulsed, and Thorin stayed glued to him, maximizing the sensations until finally Bilbo almost screamed and pushed him away. "Too much... gahh... _stop_ ," he panted, looking down into sparkling, amused eyes. Thorin's lips were puffy and red, but his grin was devilish, which Bilbo appreciated, but the chuckle was a bit too much. The hobbit tried to glare at him, but for some reason his face didn't seem to be working properly from the bone-shattering orgasm he had just experienced. "You..." he grumbled, still fighting for breath, "you're in trouble when I catch my breath." Thorin laughed outright.

"Am I, then? What possible sort of tr... oof!" came the sound as eighty pounds of determined hobbit sprang up onto him from a prone position and flung him backwards. Before he could catch his breath, Bilbo was performing the same actions on Thorin as he had just received, although he added in a twist of his wrist on the hand that he stroked with which produced a groan each time it touched the base. Doubt me again, Bilbo thought with a mental smirk. He pulled out all the stops for Thorin, everything he had learned in his (probably) misspent youth, and by the time the goal was reached Thorin was a quivering, mumbling mess in the bed. When he finally came with a roar, it was all the hobbit could do not to interrupt the blowjob he was giving to offer up a smug smile. He let the opportunity pass though, following Thorin's example and continuing the suction and pressure until the king was whining and almost shouting. After a moment in which Thorin lay, staring blankly at the ceiling, he rolled his eyes over to Bilbo. "I beg your pardon, beloved, I shouldn't have doubted you." The hobbit was more than happy to give his smugness a chance to be expressed, and did so. "I had not thought you would know..." Thorin stopped, but Bilbo didn't miss the uncomfortable tone of his voice.

"Well, all hobbits play around and learn what's what when we are young, but it doesn't mean anything," he said matter-of-factly, hoping this wouldn't be an issue. That hope was dashed by the thunderous expression growing on Thorin's face. "Really, Thorin, if you're going to be jealous about things that happened almost twenty years ago or more, it's going to become very tiresome. Besides," a small but pointed finger jabbed into solid dwarven ribs, "clearly that wasn't your first time either." Thorin's glower didn't recede, but he had the grace to look away.

"I... yes." He grumbled for a moment, looking put out. "All dwarves of any decent family arrange for their children to be trained in the bedroom arts, if they think it likely at all that they will marry. Being royal, there was no question that I be trained in such a way. But for us, such play with someone who is not our One is... unpleasant. The body is pleased but the heart aches. It is a duty, not a joy or a sport. We learn, for the day when we will one day find our mate." He sighed deeply, and gave Bilbo a vaguely apologetic look. "I will try not to be jealous, _azyungel_. It is just... difficult for me to think that someone else has ever experienced you like this." Bilbo sighed and ran a finger through the dark hair on Thorin's chest, tracing it down his belly and enjoying the sensation.

"If it helps to know, it was never like this," the hobbit said with a sheepish smile. "Back when I was doing that, it... well, I felt good, and it was fine, and I enjoyed learning, ahem, what to do in various situations, but..." hazel eyes stared deep into blue ones, "not like this. Never like this. You make me catch fire like nobody else ever did." He was thrilled to see the surly look fading as a tentative pride took its place. "I know dwarves don't share, Thorin; if nothing else, I have learned that. And I will tell you right now," he said staring pointedly at Thorin, "hobbits don't either." Thorin scoffed loudly.

"As if anyone else could ever do that for me," he said with a sardonic laugh, "once we find our One, there is no other possibility of anything else with anyone else. You are stuck with me until the end." Bilbo thought he could deal with that.


End file.
